Second Solar Initiative Opposes Floridians for Solar Choice

Less than a year ago, Floridians for Solar Choice proposed an amendment to be added to the 2016 ballot, and now, a second solar-centric ballot initiative has been proposed by an opposing community of lawmakers, businesses and religious leaders.

The new amendment proposal was designed by Consumers for Smart Solar, who claim the language of the first ballot could be misleading to voters. But according to Florida's Division of Elections, the initiative by Floridians for Solar Choice already has a head start on the support they need, with nearly 100,000 signatures of the 683,149 needed by this November. The new amendment proposal will need to garner the same number of signatures in the same time frame to be pushed onto the ballot, but Floridians for Solar Choice assures the new initiative is nothing more than a counter of the positive change they mean to bring to Florida's solar industry.

The initial ballot measure by Floridians for Solar Choice would allow homeowners and businesses with solar energy installations to sell up to two megawatts of energy to neighboring properties, helping lower the cost of electric for entire communities throughout Florida. Adversely, the initiative by the Consumers for Smart Solar works to prohibit sale of solar energy to any consumer other than state utility companies, who may then be allowed to control and profit from the exchange rather than keeping those profits in the pockets of homeowners and communities.

There is still a long way to go for both ballot initiatives, with funding still needed on both sides before either can prove to be successfully implemented. But in spite of the opposition, Floridians for Solar Choice, a group with ties to Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and Greenpeace USA, says, "... anyone who is standing against this [initiative] is representing the actual elite class which controls how much people pay in this state." Yet, Consumers for Solar Choice, which claims to be "a diverse, bipartisan coalition of business, civic and faith leaders," believes that the first initiative "will lead to a variety of unintended consequences that will hurt Florida's consumers."

In either case, those with solar energy installations in Central Florida are sure to benefit from this influx of political attention, but time will tell whether those benefits are shared with neighbors or state utilities.